73 Is A Big Deal For The Warriors

There have been some interesting efforts at deconstructing the Golden State Warriors’ run at the NBA all-time wins record, but it really is a big deal.

It’s a difficult thing, going for a long-haul record in an age where the attention span can be measured in nanoseconds.

With the Golden State Warriors—72-9 after their 92-86 win over the San Antonio Spurs at the AT&T Center Sunday night—a home-court win over the Memphis Grizzlies in the regular-season finale on Wednesday away from surpassing the legendary 1995-96 Chicago Bulls for the most regular-season wins ever, the attempts to deconstruct the importance of the mark are on the rise.

Ken Berger of CBSSports.com attempted to play the “Spurs actually won Sunday night because now the Warriors can’t rest their guys” argument.

The Spurs rested Tim Duncan on Sunday and coach Steve Kerr—coincidentally a member of the 1995-96 Bulls that went 72-10 before winning the NBA title to cap off a season that has become mythical in hindsight—will acquiesce to his team’s desire to go for the record, despite a personal preference that would have had him reducing his starters’ minutes over the final week.

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But there is a key difference between the Spurs and Warriors. Three of San Antonio’s five team leaders in terms of minutes per game are on the wrong side of 30—LaMarcus Aldridge (30.7 minutes per game) is 30, Tony Parker (27.4 MPG) is 33 and Duncan (25 MPG) will be 40 on April 25.

Golden State has one of its top five in minutes per game that is older than 30—Andre Iguodala at age 32.

Rest is nice, sure. But once the playoffs start, the back-to-back grind goes away. The four-game-in-five-nights-on-the-road is a thing of the past.

And, well, then there’s the history part.

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Some are likening the Warriors effort to the NFL’s New England Patriots, who were 16-0 during the 2007 regular season before losing Super Bowl XLII to the New York Giants to finish 18-1.

But that’s not a good comparison, because when was the last time anyone referred to an NBA champion by their combined record. Do we think of the 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers as the 81-16 Lakers? No, they are the 69-win Lakers who also won the title (and had that 33-game winning streak that boggles the mind).

The Bulls of 1995-96 are the 72-win Bulls, not the 87-13 Bulls.

Still others try to belittle the accomplishment by saying the Warriors are taking advantage of a season during which there are at least two historically-awful teams.

Math is a funny thing, however. If there is one team that is an outlier in terms of wins, there will almost always be one that trends about as far in the opposite direction.

So with Golden State holding 72 victories and San Antonio with 65, mathematically it’s not a surprise that you find the Lakers with 16 wins and the Philadelphia 76ers with 10.

And to be fair, any of the previous “big three” in terms of regular-season wins can have similar deconstructive arguments made.

The 1966-67 76ers were 68-13, with eight of those wins coming in their nine games against an expansion team (coincidentally, the Bulls).

The 1971-72 Lakers were 69-13, in a season during which there were three second-year expansion franchises, two third-year clubs, two fourth-year clubs and, oh by the way, 11 teams in a rival league that drained the talent pool to the lowest levels in the sport’s history.

And those legendary Bulls of Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, et al? They were 5-1 against the NBA’s two newest (at the time) expansion teams in the Toronto Raptors and Vancouver Grizzlies.

The truth is that there haven’t been a lot of seasons in which the NBA hasn’t had at least one team with 60 wins and one with at least 60 losses.

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The only full seasons in the 82-game schedule era (since 1967-68) without a 60-game winner are 2000-01 and the merger-era seasons from 1975-76 through 1978-79. There were no 60-loss teams in 1969-70, 1974-75, 1975-76, 1977-78, 1978-79 and 1985-86.

But 70-win seasons are extraordinarily rare, much more so than 70-loss campaigns.

The 76ers’ are 10-70, becoming the sixth team in NBA history with at least 70 defeats. They join the 1972-73 76ers (the gold standard for futility at 9-73), the 1986-87 Los Angeles Clippers (12-70), the 1992-93 Dallas Mavericks (11-71), the 1997-98 Denver Nuggets (11-71) and the 2009-10 New Jersey Nets (12-70).

The Warriors (72-9) and the Bulls (72-10), meanwhile, stand as the only two members in a very exclusive club.

Despite living in an age where the common line of thinking is “championship or your season completely sucked,” I don’t see a link between Golden State’s pursuit of win No. 73 on Wednesday and who hoists the Larry O’Brien Trophy in June (that could change should the Warriors do something unthinkable like lose in the first round, however).

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The Golden State Warriors have a chance to do something no other team has done. Why wouldn’t they go for it?